On The Dole And Watching The Pole: The New Normal EBT-Card User

Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip club - where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a NY Post investigation found. From Bronx strip clubs to gay dive bars in the East Village, US taxpayer-sponsored EBT cards have been inserted into ATMs and food stamp 'cash' has presumably been used to feed another need. The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed - and presumably spent. We should not worry too much though as Hilda Solis put us straight on how many millions of jobs these EBT-card fund recipients are creating and while we pass no judgment on those receiving and using the funds in whatever they see most fit, Cato's Michael Tanner summed it quite succinctly: "This is morally scandalous, I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this." 32oz sodas made us gulp; rare steak tough to swallow; but take away the strippers and liquor - anarchy.

Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip clubs — where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a Post investigation found.

A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which oversees the “cash assistance program,” even lists some of these welfare-ready ATMs on its Web site.

One EBT machine is stationed inside Club Eleven, an infamous Hunts Point jiggle joint known as much for its violent history as its girls in pink thongs.

Cops have been cracking down on the Bronx club since 2009 and shut it down temporarily in 2010. In July, five men were stabbed and two others shot outside after bouncers broke up a 4 a.m. brawl with pepper spray. The club appeared to be shuttered when The Post visited Thursday.

Club Heat, another Bronx strip club that dispenses EBT cash, is also no stranger to violence. A 33-year-old woman was fatally shot in the head outside the club in December 2011.

Critics blasted the government for turning a blind eye to welfare’s sleazy money.

“This is morally scandalous,” said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this.”

Welfare recipients receive food stamps and cash assistance under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Both benefits are accessed through an EBT card, but only cash assistance — meant for housing, utilities and household necessities — can be accessed at ATMs.

A single-person household could receive a maximum $200 in monthly food stamps plus $158 in cash assistance. A family of four could get as much as $668 in food stamps and $433 in cash.

The food-stamp program prohibits the purchase of booze, tobacco and lottery tickets with an EBT card. But with the cash-assistance program, users can blow money on strippers or a six-pack and to tap welfare dollars from liquor stores, casinos and adult-oriented establishments.

The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed — and presumably spent.

The Boiler Room, a gay dive bar in the East Village, had $120 and $60 transactions a minute apart on Jan. 17, 2011. The bar is around the corner from a Bank of America that takes EBT cards.

West Village tobacco shop Shisha International had EBT transactions ranging from $40 to $180 in 2011. The store is near at least two EBT-friendly ATMs.

Legislative efforts to crack down on sinful spending have fallen short.

State Sen. Tom Libous (R-Binghamton) passed a bill in his chamber in June that would outlaw welfare withdrawals at gambling dens, strip clubs and other venues of vice, but the measure is gathering dust in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.

Libous is looking for a new Assembly sponsor to carry the bill in that house in the upcoming legislative session, after past sponsor George Latimer (D-Rye) was elected to the state Senate.

With only one of the city’s Assembly members, Nicole Malliotakis (R-B’klyn./SI), as a co-sponsor, the bill faces an uphill battle.

The Assembly typically doesn’t support welfare reform, because its more liberal members think the measures “hurt the poor,” Libous said. If the bill remains stalled, the state stands to lose $120 million in federal welfare funding.

The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, signed by President Obama last February, requires states to prohibit sinful welfare spending by 2014. If they don’t, they’ll forfeit federal cash.

“The people who are stealing from the program are the ones I want to go after,” Libous said. “Not someone who lost his job or a single mom who has to feed her kids. That’s what this program is supposed to be for.”

A spokesman with the US Department of Health and Human Services said states make their own rules on EBT cards.

Some states already limit where EBT cards can withdraw money.

A rep from OTDA, New York’s welfare office, said the state does not choose or regulate which retailers get ATMs that handle EBTs. Instead, retailers decide whether to use an ATM that accepts welfare cards.

Why do they even allow ETM cards to be used in ATMs or at strip-clubs??? Surely there could be some way to limit their purchasing ability to be limited to grocery stores/convenience stores and only be used for certain kinds of scanned items???

cuz lord knows that before all the civil rights act stuff purified america's evil soul and made the country the great place it is today, there was NO WAY to "keep order" of ornery savages without extortion payments huh?

These cards are the legacy of '67, trying to buyoff a future without riots.

Even if there was no cash from these benefits at all, it would still be possible not not spend your other cash on groceries, because you are getting SNAP benefits. Then what cash you do earn can be spent on what you want. Or, you can buy stuff with the card and barter for cash or for what you actually want.

Think about it, a pusher needs to eat, so he sends out some SNAP associates to do his shopping, and pays them in cash or goods for doing so. Plenty of other people need to eat and have a little cash, so they can send a SNAP associate shopping, who just wants cash. The system is very easy to abuse. Heck, I recently learned that in Michigan you can get ten grand to build greenhouses as long as you take SNAP benefits. How much accountability do you think there is for what is done with said greenhouses, or with the grant to build them period?

I was merely pointing the way, as a public service, yes!, a public service to those single young unfortunates who have a high toleration (or desperation) for, ahh, exotic non-earthly species. I suppose there IS a risk they could be eaten however.

The confusion here is that the ETM cards are only being used in ATMs, but some of them happen to be in strip clubs.

Of course, the confusion for the average reader is what ZH is counting on. You'll tell somebody that the cards are being used in strip clubs and the next guy tells somebody, and, well, thats the way propaganda works.

So maybe somebody stops in the club for a pop after a long day working at Walmart, needs to pick up diapers on the way home, and uses the convenient ATM that is in the bar to withdraw cash to spend on the kid. How do you know that isn't the case?

Why not just host the soup kitchens like they did in the 1930s? If you really need the free food you can wait in line. I know this because there was a two-month period where I did, in fact, wait outside in the snow for half an hour so I could get half a dozen eggs and some lemons. Best lesson in personal finance that I ever learned, because I do NOT want to do it again!.

Of course, I think the reason we don't bring back the soup kitchens is because we would then have to expose the enormity of the problem:

Disgusting. Failure (and the freedom to fail) is one of the greatest teachers there is. And plowing through failures and on to success is one of the greatest liberating experiences a person can have. Man I hate the leftist mindset so much.

above the line trolling, yet again - ZH, it's been repeatedly pointed out in thread comments that EBT and SNAP are not the same, and SNAP (food stamps) has limits on how it can be used, ie FOODstuffs only, not even toilet paper can be carried off by those pixels exchanged.

and yet;

food stamp 'cash' has presumably been used to feed another need.

no. they. can't. if men are using their EBT cards at strip joints, it's not a "food stamp" card they're carrying. and all the "we don't pass judgement" is nonsense as well - presumably those "poor" who have "a crummy life" who need to "have a drink" and "see a naked woman" aren't welfare queens with broods feeding off the .gov now, are they? they don't need to see naked women - yet THOSE are the people reviled in thread most often.

as to "limiting" where people can withdraw their benefit benny-bux - yeah, the convenience aspect of swiping where yer swilling might go, but as long as they put "benefit" pixels on BANK CARDS that allow BANKS to profit off each payment, then they don't really care how the fiat is spent into the economy, thus propping up the fake for yet. another. day. which is the real story, is it not???

bah. no idea why I bother. I used to think this place was smarter, but re-posting NYPost front page rants? really???

From links via Matt Drudge ... thousands of hours of explicit porn movies are free, on the #3 and #4 websites in the world ...

Could these indeed be intentional subsidised 'porn fare' sponsored by the US government ?

The two sites are Xvideos and Youporn ...

At moments Xvideos, with its video-heavy bandwidth, this one site is actually 2% of all the intenet traffic in the whole world

Thousands of porn videos entirely free, apparently, tho a lot of pop-up etc advertising ... movies are both amateur 'captured' husband-and-wife etc items from Facebook and so on, but also lots of commercial porn assembled from file sharing sites or otherwise pirated

The Google criminals' YouTube lost money for years ... Could these porn sites really be selling enough from the ads to make money?

Or is it that the US government and oligarchs are sponsoring the thousands of hours of free porn - just to turn global male youth into mush heads?

A way of 'drugging' the populace along with the drugs the CIA is actually selling, part of 'Brave New World' type psychological control, to get people to stop thinking? Get the males of the world hooked on free porn?

The US government is aggressive trying to close down the sites offering free Hollywood movies, like megaupload, but they allow sites with the free pirated and hijacked porn movies ...

The online porn is said to be a reason why, in recent years, girls are documented at doing much better at university and getting higher grades and more advanced degrees ... the boys are watching porn, or playing video games, and becoming idiots ... girls are much less tempted by video stuff

So it is maybe not just the American SEC regulators, but the whole of Western civilisation?

« ... At peak time, Xvideos might burst to 1,000Gbps (1Tbps) or more. To put this into perspective, there’s only about 15Tbps of connectivity between London and New York ... in other words, a single porn site accounts for almost 2% of the internet’s total [global] traffic. »

Fear not, lad. America will indeed get what it deserves. When the system snaps, I for one, would not want to be on the wrong side....best of luck to the p0rn watching, EBT using, Twinkie eating populace.

For example, a common expense report item for bankers and hedgies in New York is a favorite venue which is listed on a credit card bill as Roberts Restaurants. Roberts Restaurants is actually Scores Gentlemans Club. Now to be fair, Scores does have a restaurant however all charges in the establishment, whether it is for food, drinks, Scores Bux for lap dances, or rental of a private room are billed as Roberts.

Seeing as class warfare is in full swing and the US is burdenoned under crushing debt, this elucidate the wasteful nature of how the government spends the money they confiscate from people who actually work.

Go for it tiger. Get all jazzed up over it. It just what the author is counting on. Drop some completely anecdotal bullshit and watch morons just feast on it.

This is just fucking stupid. The site is posting more and more of them as the demographics, particularly eduction level of readers, continues to plummet. You wouldn't have seen the garbage 2 years ago and certainly the ignorant comments fanning imaginary flames.

The Tylers are extending equal opportunity criticism of corruption at all levels of society.

Until people start to realize that they are part of the problem, the system will never be fixed. Few are willing to be the patsy and watch corruption happen around them and not throw up their hands in futility and decide to just 'get theirs' by whatever means possible. That is what this country is quickly becoming. A country of people just taking as much as possible as they see no honor left in the system and feel they are being taken advantage of. We are approaching the point of no return and everyone had better pray that we don't pass it.

FYI....people 'feasting on it' is likely their way of expressing their aggravation with being taken advantage of. You should acknowledge that and offer a positive action/direction instead of criticizing their legitimate grievances.

Anyone that has been here for some time has seen it become more and more of a tabloid site with a declining quality of discussion. It's went from a good portion of reasonable and educated commentors to the 'fringe' doomers and outcasts. The reasonableness is gone and it's now sensationalized to match the audience.

Now, where is the Americans are 'fatties' post? Or, the Chevy Volt...Or, the Iranian military...Or, whatever else gets the idiots whipped into a frenzy.

My god, some people are ripping off the welfare system for petty amounts. Golly, what a fucking surprise.

Ok so only the Green Bay Packers are a corporation amongst the NFL teams, but there are plenty of corps. tied in to NFL deals...especially media corps. like NBC, CBS, etc..

But let me ask you this, why am I forced to pay for your enjoyment of the NFL with my tax dollars when as I said I don't give a flying fuck about that particular circus?

The newest stadium deal to piss off an entire state is thanks to the Indianapolis Colts. The brand new Lucas Oil Stadium is being financed with $612 million of state bonds. The team will contribute about $100 million. It's the identical thing that was done for the Chicago Bears, except this time it's slightly more expensive for taxpayers during a horrendously crappy economy.

Sounds fantastic. So what do people think of this lovely plan?

``The deal is the biggest taxpayer ripoff in NFL history,'' Gary Welsh, an Indianapolis attorney and former Republican lobbyist, wrote on his Advance Indiana blog on Aug. 9.

Sure, but I prefer to work top down and try to concentrate on the real problem. Otherwise, none of us will have the energy to move to the next level which is going to be required no matter which event brings down the house of cards. In the meantime nit picking over peanuts just divides and distracts. Keep your eye on the ball is all I'm trying to say.

The problem, and it has been written about for several hundred years, is that there are two groups, the deserving poor and the irresponsible who are poor.

The irresponsible poor are poor because of bad choices, poor judgment, a tendency to live for the day and fail to plan for the future, bad spending habits, other bad habits, etc.

All you do by giving them cash assistance is you enable them to continue their lifestyle.

It is seductive to live for the moment, spend everything you have on wants not needs, to be lazy and avoid hard work that is "beneath" one. It is fun to party, use drugs, fuck without protection.

The solution is hard, but the solution is definitely not rewarding and reinforcing such behavior. We just become enablers if we do. That is certainly not a noble or morally superior position to be an enabler, although the MSM and socialists will hold up the child in front of the TV and attempt to shame those who point out the enabling. Children make such convenient hostages.

And here's something that I fortunately discovered at a relatively young age: its much more satisfying to actual do something useful (build a house, repair a car or electronic instrument, install an air conditioner etc) than be a pertetual "consumer". The only real "assets" anyone has are his/her skills, abilities and experiences. As Dickens correctly asserted: "the best steel comes from the hottest furnaces". No effort, no satisfaction.

Shit! We're talking about the greatest country on earth here! If the needy need to see tits, then it is the taxpayer's responsibility to see that need met! The no voyer left behind program, bitchez! I'm sure there's an eating out joke here too...I just can't put my finger on it...

The fucking degenerate scum of this country needs to be taken out to the woodshed and shot. This is the new all time height to depravity. Yet the people of this country continue to allow it. Every fucking person on the "dole" in this country needs to see the shame that goes with it. Bring back bread lines, and soup lines etc. They need to see what it feels like when they look their fellow human beings in the face as they recieve "charity" taken from their fellow men and women. They need to feel guilty. They need to be on real skid row, no SNAP account or EBT card. No no no no!!!!!! You will only get basic sustenance. Enough to keep you alive and nothing more. Seeing how most of these people probably have never managed any money they have gotten in their entire life well, illgotten or not, I don't really think it's a good idea to keep feeding the fucking parasites so that they can continue to make bad decisions with other peoples money just like the political whores that pander to them.

Isn't it the case that the most atheistic states today are descended from the old Puritan states? Maybe we're watching a multi-generational backfiring in terms of religion, but the people's nature to ban what they don't like hasn't changed.